


homebound

by thir13enth



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, because she's making a new home with hapi you know what i mean, but i really wanted the hapistance in there, honestly more of a constance centric fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25452109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: and so the flowers return every spring. and so nature renews herself, but the petals once fallen will never bloom again.
Relationships: Hapi/Constance von Nuvelle
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	homebound

**Author's Note:**

> this was for [hapistance week](https://www.twitter.com/hapistanceweek) but i'm clearly very late

The von Nuvelle establishment is in shambles when Constance finally returns.

Ruins. Blanched stone and discolored tiles. Overturned pavement, overgrown nature. Headless, wingless, limbless statues overseeing a garden of twigs and pebbles. Windows opaque with dirt or completely broken through. Crumbling pillars holding up webs of floors. The grand double door is strewn away, now an open entrance welcome to all the elements. 

It looked like death, the sunset baring a haze of smoke red over the skeleton of her family home. 

When she sees it, Constance almost cries. 

But what was she expecting after all? How silly was she to think that the mansion she fled from — fire and gunshots trailing the back of her torn dress and soil-streaked slippers — would be exactly as it was the morning before the invasion? How naive was she to think that everything would be completely as she left it?

She asks herself this as she steps slowly through the blackened rubble, dusted with ash and time. There is nothing left here. Everything was already destroyed, and everything else has already been salvaged.

There is still the dollhouse in the corner of the living room, however.

She wipes her tears away and kneels in front of it, memories she lost suddenly rushing towards her. She had completely forgotten about this. She had been in the middle of a tea party. A tea party of four. For her four dolls — Ms. Klara Vogel, Ms. Johanna von Moller, Ms. Charlotte von Burgmann, and Ms. Hanna Bach. Ms. von Moller had braided her hair that day for the occasion. Ms. Bach liked her tea with three cubes of sugar. Ms. Vogel dipped her biscuits in her drink for only a split second so as to not get them soggy. Ms. von Burgmann had been in the middle of telling a story. She was sharing gossip. Gossiping about…

Constance lets out a breath after her mind offers her nothing. She doesn’t remember.

She picks up Ms. von Moller. Her hair is still perfectly braided, without a single strand astray.

“They were having tea,” she musters, her throat tight. She sits Ms. von Moller back into her chair.

Hapi softly squeezes her hand. 

She’s never let go this entire time.

“How are you feeling?” Hapi asks. “Lots of rebuilding to do, huh?”

Constance blinks. “Maybe,” she replies.

She slowly stands back to her feet then, Hapi following her lead. Constance does a slow turn, taking in the decade of decay around her. She’s surprised how much is still intact — the high table and stools still stand straight, despite the water-warped wooden floors underneath their legs — and she is surprised how much of this she had completely forgotten. 

Constance had always thought she would feel at peace once she re-made the von Nuvelle name. But now, she feels even more empty than when she first lost it all. Seeing the remnants of what her family still had — what time was still holding onto in this graveyard of a home — felt like reattaching herself to a past she’s already come to terms with.

She’s spent the better half of her life striving towards re-establishing her family’s name. She’s spent ages in the Abyss, a millenia in war… and now that she is here, reclaiming these barren grounds… all this work and all this time and all this effort for this? A reminder of what she kept separate from her childhood memories? A sullen and barren property with only the value of loss?

How silly of her. How naive of her to think she could just pick up and start from where things had broken.

It isn’t that simple after all. There are missing pieces — pieces she will never be able to find for as long as she searches, pieces she will never be able to recall.

There is nothing here.

Maybe she doesn’t need a house in the same foundations she grew up in. Maybe she is still a von Nuvelle even if she doesn’t have any generational relics to show. Maybe she can start her own beginning, her own legacy, her own line. Maybe she can leave this place to nature — make this a place where others can come to picnic and see the stars, bright and clear in the night sky. 

Hapi softly squeezes her hand again. “Are you okay?” she asks again.

Patient, warm, understanding.

Constance takes a breath, then nods.

“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [your favorite bird app](https://www.twitter.com/napsbeforesleep)


End file.
